


Radiation Sickness

by kaeorin



Series: Stark Tower: Avengers Drabbles [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Awkwardness, F/M, Flirting, Hurt/Comfort, Magic, Stark Tower, Summer, Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-15 00:14:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14779967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeorin/pseuds/kaeorin
Summary: After spending a beautiful summer day with friends, you end up with sunburn–and get help from an unexpected place.





	Radiation Sickness

**Author's Note:**

> I just posted this on my Tumblr, but I also wanted to post it here. I like to keep my writing all together. I have a couple of quick notes to make:
> 
> -I don't want to...yank any of you out of the story, but the Reader gets a sunburn in this story. I don't make a big deal out of how pale or light their skin normally is, because all skin types/colors can get burned with enough exposure, but there _are_ several mentions of pinkness/redness. I did a bit of searching through Google Images and it looks like very dark skin mostly just gets darker with just a little hint of redness? I’m not an expert, so please correct me if I’m wrong. You are 100% encouraged to mentally substitute in the correct adjectives if your own skin doesn’t turn pink or red when it’s burned. (And if you have any suggestions for corrections, I’m completely open to hearing them and editing them into this fic. In any case, please remember to wear sunscreen this summer! All skin is at risk for skin cancer, no matter how dark it is, and I want you all to stay healthy and happy!
> 
> -This takes place in some kind of AU in which the Avengers end up rescuing Loki from Thanos before the Battle of New York. Remember those days, just after The Avengers came out, when we all imagined the heroes living together in Stark Tower and hanging out and stuff like that? That’s the kind of universe in which this story takes place. Just so there’s no confusion or anything. I love reading other authors' stories that take place in universes like this, so I'm playing around with one of my own.

It had been the perfect day.

This week was one of the first really warm weeks after what felt like an endless winter. A bunch of your friends had gathered at someone’s house upstate, and you’d spent all day hanging out together in the yard. There was a huge array of grilled meats, not to mention all of the snacks and sides that you could have dreamed of. The sun had been shining merrily, warming your winter-chilled bones while a soft breeze kept things from getting too hot and sticky. Conversation had been light and easy, while great music played in the background. Even better, the day was not interrupted by emergency phone calls from Stark or Fury or anyone else. There were no crises to call you back to the city. All was well. You were…normal.

You hadn’t really thought about the consequences until you were seated in your car, driving back to Stark Tower in the city. At first, you’d thought that the heat in your cheeks and under your skin was just the afterglow of a day well spent. But then, as the miles passed, the heat began to grow and prickle a bit, especially where your seat belt rubbed against your chest. When you finally got back home and went to wash up, one glance in the mirror confirmed your suspicions.

The first sunburn of the season.

Wincing, you appraised the damage in front of the mirror above your bathroom sink. This morning, you had pulled your favorite sundress out from the back of the closet, where it had spent the last several months while you hunkered down in hoodies and sweaters. Feeling the warm sun and the cool breeze against your skin had been delightful today, but…now you were paying the price. You twisted a bit, to try to get a better look at your back. You could see clear outlines of your straps there: much lighter in comparison with the angry pink of damaged skin. You cursed yourself for forgetting to put on sunscreen, but…after spending the winter in all those many layers of clothing, you had simply gotten out of the habit. 

You lowered your gaze to the sink with a sigh and splashed some water on your face. Though it barely felt cool to your hands—in fact, it was more lukewarm—it was icy on your cheeks. You suppressed a shiver, and then rolled your eyes at yourself in the mirror above the sink. Honestly, a grown woman forgetting something like sunscreen. The whole _point_ of today was celebrating the beginning of summer. Still, what point was there in berating yourself about it for the rest of the night? It wasn’t going to change what had happened. Gingerly, you dabbed your face dry and then slipped into your bedroom to change.

Now, this was hardly the worst sunburn you’d ever had. You’d faced much worse growing up, including one time at a sleepaway camp that had led everyone in your cabin to call you “Blister” for the next three summers. This one didn’t even look like it was going to end up peeling. It was just…uncomfortable, and a little bit frustrating. You’d been living in this skin for all your life: you knew that it burned, and you knew that sunburn sucked. You were usually much better about sunscreen.

You put on your softest tank top and a pair of flannel bottoms before heading back out and downstairs to the kitchen. You didn’t know who else was home in the Tower, and you didn’t relish the thought of hearing “Whoa, you’re sunburned!” half a dozen times from your well-meaning colleagues, but you also didn’t want to lock yourself up in your room this early. Maybe that was the price you simply had to pay. Having spent the afternoon grazing on this and that, you weren’t really hungry, but you poured yourself a big glass of water and grabbed the aloe gel you remembered stashing in the fridge last summer. You took your treasures into the living room and folded yourself into the corner of the couch, reaching for the remote. But you didn’t turn on the TV. There wasn’t anything on. There was never anything on. Instead, you just sat there for a while, resting your head on the back of the couch and enjoying the silence. Stark Tower was rarely this quiet. It was nice.

When you finally remembered the aloe, you sat up a little and reached to pick it up off of the side table. As you did, however, something in the doorway caught your eye. There was a figure. You were just a little too drowsy, a little too slow, to have time to jump to your feet and assume a defensive position, but that was okay. Your brain finally kicked into gear, finally recognized the intruder. It was Loki. When he saw you startle, he stood up a little straighter, but didn’t come any closer. Even from here, you could see the wry half-smile that curled his lips.

“Here on Earth, it’s considered pretty rude to just lurk in doorways like that, you know.” Your voice was a little sharper than you meant it to be, but…your heart was still racing. There probably wasn’t any sense in trying to hide the fact that he’d scared you for a minute. Loki hadn’t yet been in the Tower long enough for you to have a full grasp of the range of his powers, but you got the feeling that he could sense a lot more than anyone else.

“I didn’t intend to scare you.” His voice, low and rich, still made you shiver. You lifted one shoulder in a shrug and squirted some aloe onto your fingertips. You were really starting to feel the burning in your cheeks. You smoothed the cool gel onto your face, trying not to feel incredibly awkward about the fact that Loki was just standing there watching you. Just as you were finishing with your face, you heard him take a step forward. “What are you doing?”

When you glanced over, his eyes were still fixed on you. You held up the bottle in answer to his question and squirted out a bit more, this time for your shoulders. But, going by the expression on his face, he was apparently mystified by the green goo. Interesting. You took pity on him and gestured towards your shoulder. “I got sunburned today, so I’m putting on aloe. It helps soothe the burn.”

“Your skin!” He’d crept even closer now, so that he was almost standing right in front of you. “How does that happen?”

There was something about him right now. He’d all but dropped his cool, imperious nature in favor of this curiosity. You could work with that. “It’s something to do with the radiation that the sun gives off? The skin can only handle so much of it, so if you spend too much time in the sun, eventually skin cells start dying? I didn’t pay enough attention in science class; I’m sure Banner could give you a much better explanation…” Heat rose into your cheeks again, only this time you were pretty sure it was less related to your dying skin cells than to the way that Loki was still looking at you.

“Your skin is dying,” he repeated in a hushed voice. “And does that make it regenerate?”

The bottle of aloe in your lap. You laughed despite yourself and reached out to hand him the bottle. “No, I don’t think so. Mostly it just makes it hurt less. Are you telling me that you never got sunburned in Asgard? With that porcelain skin of yours?”

He shook his head as he read the back of the bottle. “I’d imagine that we adapted to our sun’s radiation long ago. It’s a wonder you Midgardians get anything done, as fragile as you are.” The words made you bristle a bit, but there was no venom in them. He sounded a little distracted.

“Don’t forget, it was mostly Midgardians that got you out of Thanos’s grip last year.” But your words were half-hearted. You still weren’t completely comfortable spending time alone with Loki, but he was part of the team now.

“I meant no offense.” But the words were little more than automatic. He’d squirted a bit of aloe into his hand and lifted it to his nose. His eyes narrowed a bit, his nose wrinkling. He didn’t like the smell of it. You wanted to laugh, but somehow managed to keep quiet. Instead, you stretched a little, to rub the little bit of aloe that was left on your hands onto the backs of your shoulders. Something about the movement drew his eyes. “Is your back burnt, too?”

“A little bit, I think.” Your cheeks and shoulders had definitely gotten the worst of the sun, but you could feel the telltale heat in the skin of your back, too. “It’ll be fine, though. I didn’t blister this time, so it’ll probably fade in a couple of days.”

“You people _blister_?! Just from your _sun_?” The horror in his voice made you smile despite yourself. You’d never really sat down and thought about the realities of sunburn, but he was making you rethink things. This planet was kind of a nightmare…

Without warning, Loki sat down on the couch beside you. “Turn around. I’ll get your back.”

You hesitated. It wasn’t really all that long ago that Loki was an enemy of the Avengers. Granted, he’d been controlled by another big bad, so you weren’t entirely sure how much of it was actually his own doing, but… You’d hunted him, once. And even now that he was supposedly on your side, this was probably the longest conversation you’d ever had with him. You studied his face. He seemed sincere enough. There was a guardedness in his eyes, but something told you that it was more because of the same things currently running through your mind than any kind of nefarious plot.

The other Avengers were still on edge when Loki was around. They still didn’t trust him. He didn’t seem overly bothered by this, but…no one wanted to live their life constantly under suspicion. It wasn’t fair. _Someone_ had to be the one to give him a chance, and it might as well have been you. So you gave him a smile that was mostly sincere and turned your back to him.

He didn’t move for a moment or two: You got the feeling that he was just taking in the sight. Imagine a kingdom—an entire planet—where people didn’t burn in the sun. Briefly, you wondered if anyone in Asgard ever ended up with skin cancer, but didn’t bother asking. If he didn’t know what you were talking about, you didn’t quite feel up to explaining it. Still, he was a lucky bastard, and he didn’t even realize it.

Finally, you felt him slide the straps of your tank top down your shoulders. He was being very careful, you noted, not to let them scrape against your skin. When he first started to rub aloe onto you, you flinched, which made him draw back immediately.

“Sorry,” you said, feeling rather sheepish. “It was just…cold. You took me by surprise; you didn’t hurt me.”

He made a sound like a thoughtful hum and touched you again. This time, you kept yourself from flinching and instead focused on the way the coolness seemed to sink into your skin. There was a gentleness in his touch that you would never have expected to come from him. You could tell that he was taking care not to be too rough, and you were filled with a wordless gratitude, one that you weren’t sure you could ever actually express to him.

“Sunburn’s really not that bad, at least not when it’s this light,” you began to babble. “I don’t know if you’ve ever been smacked, but…you know that…stinging…tingle? That’s all this is, except it usually lasts a couple of days instead of fading after a couple of moments. And I guess there’s a lot more of it. So maybe it’s not really all that similar at all.” You fell quiet again. He still hadn’t said anything, and the heaviness in the air between you suddenly made your tongue feel too large for your mouth. But you couldn’t quite find it in you to wish you hadn’t come out to the living room. This was a little uncomfortable, sure, but something about the way his hands were gliding over your skin, just barely dipping beneath your top every once in a while, was making pleasurable little goosebumps erupt down your arms. And the aloe had yet to take on the warmth from your skin: it still felt cool and soothing, even as he rubbed it in. “Are you using your magic right now, or are your hands just that cold?”

He hesitated just long enough before answering that you began to wonder if your question was somehow rude. But then he cleared his throat and spoke: “I do tend to run cold.” He was quiet for a little while longer, and then let his hands fall still against you. “I could try to use magic, if you’d like. I’ve never tried to regenerate cells before, but I imagine it’d be easy, especially with Midgardian cells.”

“Hey, thanks a lot.” But it was hard to be truly offended. Just like his last comment about Midgardians, there was no venom or disdain in his voice. You got the sense that, as far as he was concerned, he was simply stating facts. And maybe humans _were_ genetically simpler than Asgardians. What did you know about it? “But…if you’re willing to try, I’m willing to be your test subject.” And you were. This was a little more nerve-wracking than just trusting him to touch you, but…in for a penny, in for a pound, as it were.

You felt him spread his fingers out against your back, and tried not to shiver. There was a slight prickling sensation, but it was no worse than the sunburn itself. Before long, it began to fade, until you didn’t feel anything except Loki’s hands. “It worked,” he said, sounding pleased with himself. “And it was just as easy as I’d thought.”

“Well…thank you.” When he pulled his hands away, you turned back around to face him. He was a little close for comfort now that you were face-to-face, but you could suck it up for a little while. “Really. Thank you. You didn’t have to do that, but…I’m glad you did.”

He nodded slightly, with a faint smile, and reached out to touch your face. Thankfully, you stopped yourself before you could cringe away from him (imagine, being so rude to someone who had just done you such a big favor), but he must have seen the question in your eyes. He tapped your cheeks with his thumbs, gently enough that it didn’t hurt. “Your face is still burnt. I could leave it, if you’d prefer?”

Oh. You wondered if he could feel the fresh surge of heat in your face as you shook your head. “No. I’m sorry. Please, go on.”

You tried to look at him as he…well, did whatever it was that he needed to do, but the intensity in his eyes caught you off guard. Your face prickled just as your back had, and you let your eyes slip closed. That was easier. You could still feel him looking at you, but…at least you didn’t have to look back at him. Anyway, you knew it wasn’t really you he was looking at, but his work. When the prickling faded, as it had before, you felt Loki brush his thumbs softly over your cheekbones before letting his hands drop away. You ignored your urge to jump up off of the couch as you opened your eyes. “Thank you. Again.”

“And thank _you_ , for trusting me.” He lowered his voice and leaned in a little closer. “Who knows what dastardly tricks I could have pulled on you.”

You swallowed thickly and tried, but likely failed, to give him a sunny smile. “You wouldn’t still be here if you were really all that dastardly. You’d have better things to do than sit here and mess with little old me. You’re probably harmless.” It was mostly true, as far as you were concerned. He wasn’t locked up here. If Loki were truly out to wreak more havoc on the planet, he could have gone and done it ages ago. Hell, you knew that Tony was better about keeping his lab locked up now that Loki lived in the Tower, but you also got the feeling that Earthly tech couldn’t really keep Loki out of a place if he really wanted to get inside it. Loki’s smile was at once secretive and appreciative. He leaned towards you again to speak, and you caught yourself leaning into him.

“I’m not sure I’d go that far, darling. But your faith in me is…gratifying.”

***

The next morning, you combed your fingers through your hair as you made your way to the kitchen. The smell of coffee had somehow drifted all the way up into your bedroom, and you weren’t sure you’d ever wanted anything more. Natasha was sitting at the table, flipping idly through a newspaper as she drank from her mug, and you greeted her with a half-nod as you went to the coffee maker. Just as you were pouring your own coffee, you heard Thor wish you both a good morning, and so you reached up to get a mug for him as well.

“What the hell is that?” Natasha still didn’t sound completely awake, but there was an edge to her voice that made you turn around, expecting the worst. She was practically glaring at you. Your heart stopped.

“What? What’s wrong?” Wide-eyed, you gave yourself a quick once-over before casting a helpless look at Thor. He seemed at least as confused as you were, though perhaps not quite as panicked. That was understandable—Natasha Romanoff wasn’t glaring at _him_. Loki was not far behind him, once again leaning against the doorway, but his face was cautiously blank. He was no help, either. Natasha got up and stalked towards you without speaking. When she reached your side, she grabbed one of your shoulders and effortlessly spun you around to face the counter. “Nat, please.”

“You’ve got Loki’s name here,” she said, and then you felt her tracing the edges of what must have been the thing she was talking about. Your skin stung a bit where she touched it. “It’s not a tattoo… Thor, if your brother’s going around branding members of my team…”

Suddenly, your muscles relaxed, and you could feel your heart rate going back to normal. It was easy to figure out what had happened. “No one branded me. I got sunburned yesterday while I was out with friends, and when I got home, Loki said he could try to heal it for me. I guess he couldn’t resist leaving his mark, though.” You cast a Look at him over your shoulder. When you met his eyes, they were sparkling with laughter, though the rest of his face remained composed. Natasha’s face was still hard, but she at least seemed to be listening to you. You stepped away from her and poured a third mug of coffee. “I promise, it’s not a big deal. He’s harmless. Probably.” Carefully, you scooped up all three mugs of coffee and then walked to the doorway to hand one to Thor and one to Loki. If his fingers brushed against yours as he accepted it from you, and then lingered there on purpose, well…his expression gave no indication of that. You flashed him a quick smile as you brushed past him to get through the doorway.

This time, you were pretty sure that the heat beneath your skin had nothing to do with the sun.


End file.
